


Precipice

by 221b_hound



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Gen, John goes all Captain Watson, Post Reichenbach, Reichenbach Feels, Sherlock is the vulnerable one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-15
Updated: 2012-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-07 18:59:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The idea for this came to me last night. It's not in answer to a prompt, it's just that I've read so much fic (and written some of it too) where John has this great emotional breakdown of some description when Sherlock returns. Then I thought, what if (as in the original story) John processes it all and is more or less fine, and it's Sherlock who has the huge emotional reaction? Well, huge for him. </p><p>So here is my gen, angsty Post-Reichenbach Return story, with John being a little bit BAMF and Sherlock having <i>all teh feels.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Precipice

None of this is going the way Sherlock imagined it would. He knows John Watson well, and extrapolating knowledge into potential outcomes is part of Sherlock’s genius, but this… isn’t going well. Or maybe it is. Sherlock can’t really tell, and that is one of the many things about this reunion that is troubling him.

Sherlock’s imagination had extrapolated a number of scenarios for when he finally returned to London and revealed to his flatmate ( _his partner, his best friend, his blogger, his John Watson_ ) that he wasn’t really dead. But John didn’t faint. John didn’t punch Sherlock in the face (and Sherlock had been ready to wear that, to let John express his emotional overload with violence, if that was necessary). John didn’t cry either (another, less possible, eventuality that Sherlock thought he could endure. John was the sentimental type after all).

Instead, when Sherlock lets himself into John’s new flat and stands to greet his old friend on John’s return from the surgery, John just freezes to the spot. Well, Sherlock had imagined that much, certainly. But then John, whose hand trembles briefly then steadies like a rock, morphs into military rigidity. He draws his shoulders back, his feet together, his chin up. Contained, a hard outline. Not a shred of sentiment to be seen, not even in those blue eyes, which are quite, quite hard.

Impulsively, Sherlock starts to reach towards him, but John scowls and the movement is aborted.

Sherlock has seen John in Captain Watson mode before, but it has never been directed at him. For some reason, this dour response is not among the scenarios Sherlock envisioned.

“Explain.” It’s an order.

“I faked my death. I had to make Moriarty’s crew believe it. I had to make you believe it.”

“Obviously,” snaps Captain Watson, “You wouldn’t have said those things unless there was a good reason. Moriarty had some hold over you. Something that didn’t change even though he was dead. I’ve known that from the start. I thought that was why you killed yourself. I’ve been trying to work out what it was. For two years.”

Sherlock listens for the catch in John’s voice, but there is only Captain Watson’s brisk and hard-edged tone. He feels wrong-footed both by his miscalculation and John’s attitude. But of course John wants to know what happened.

Sherlock, via Mycroft and Molly, has been keeping an eye on his friend during his absence. He knows how John, after the initial depression and malaise, began working on Sherlock’s old case files. John wanted to prove that Sherlock was not a fake by duplicating, as far as possible, Sherlock’s methods. He succeeded, to a degree. He was never as quick as Sherlock; he missed a lot. But he learned to both see and observe, to apply those observations to deductive and inductive reasoning. For the last year, John Watson has been proving Sherlock was not a fake in a series of cases. John is not fast and brilliant, but he is determined and dogged. John is getting a bit of a reputation in the force, and dragging Sherlock’s reputation back up with it.

Sherlock’s been very proud of John’s success in this arena. But now he wonders if it hasn’t done something to John. Sealed up his heart somehow.

At that thought, Sherlock wonders what has happened to his own reasoning, and his own heart, since it’s such a sentimental observation and sentiment was always John’s department, not his.

“So explain it to me, Sherlock,” Captain Watson is saying, “Step me though it.” It’s what John used to always say in cases, when Sherlock’s reasoning had leapt way ahead of his, and Sherlock had forgotten that other people hadn’t made the same connections at the same speed, because they were so slow and stupid and… but John’s not really stupid.  Insufficiently observant (or he used to be) and way too slow in his reasoning, but not stupid. He could always follow the reasoning afterwards, and then pronounce Sherlock brilliant at having achieved it. Perhaps he’ll do it again.

Captain Watson needs a debrief, Sherlock thinks. He wants to know how the mission worked, and why it had to work that way. Sherlock can understand and appreciate that. So he begins. He explains what happened on the rooftop, the preparations he had made, and how he had hoped to avoid using them, and couldn’t. And then Sherlock talks about everything that followed. Two years of everything. Molly and Mycroft and running and spying and planning and sneaking and hoping and desperation and never sleeping and never, ever stopping.

Captain Watson stands at attention, listening carefully. Sometimes he stops Sherlock, asking pointed and even insightful questions. Why _this_ or _that_ action and not some other? Why continue to conceal his survival? Why should _this_ consequence follow, not _that_?  

The Captain asks for salient details, sometimes holds up a hand for silence while he digests, reflects, then motions for the report to continue. Most of his questions start with Why, a very few with Who and How.  But mostly it’s Why.

And mostly, the answer is “I could not be sure that the orders to kill you, Mrs Hudson and Greg Lestrade did not still stand. I could not guarantee your safety until I was done. I could not be done until you were safe.” Sherlock doesn’t always say it that way, but that’s the why underneath all the other whys.

Captain Watson simply listens; nods from time to time; files it all away. Every thread of logic, every weighed decision, every victory, every failure. Everything. He remains at attention, thinking, his expression unreadable.

Unreadable. How can this be the case? Sherlock wants to grab John by the coat and shake him till his teeth rattle. _I did it all for you._ He should feel angry, he thinks, but instead, he feels strangely like he’s on that rooftop again. The future is open before him like an appalling, blank space and he doesn’t know what happens next. He has planned and extrapolated and done his best, but he does not know what comes next.

And it feels like he’s still falling. He’s not supposed to. He’s supposed to be in control, all sardonic and logical and laughing because he solved the puzzle, he won, he’s alive, he’s home and it should be the end.

He shouldn’t be standing on a precipice, not knowing John’s next thought or action, not knowing what comes next.

He shouldn’t be clenching his fists against the trembling of his hands, clenching his teeth on unsteady breaths and, not, not, not trying not to cry, like he did that day on St Bart’s, saying goodbye to everything that mattered.

John’s the emotional one. In all his imaginings, it was John succumbing to emotional overload while Sherlock weathered the storm and picked up the pieces.

Sherlock’s not sure if John will pick up the pieces of him if he falls again. He’s not sure that John will forgive him. For long, awful minutes, Sherlock is not sure of anything at all.

Captain Watson’s chin jerks up, snapping out of his reverie. “That’s it then? It’s done with?”

“Not quite,” says Sherlock, amazed that his voice can be so steady, in spite of the dizzying abyss where his knowledge of the future should be. “There’s one thing left to do. I have to take down Sebastian Moran. Everything’s in place for us to strike. It’s a hard and dangerous night’s work ahead…”

“Isn’t it always?”

“You’ll… come with me?” When he’d rehearsed it in his head, that sentence had been pronounced with strength and a certain delight, with his hand extended, beckoning John back to his side with the offer of a life of adventure and excitement, like the old days. But it’s transformed into something unsure and Sherlock can’t believe so timid a sound could come from his mouth.

And suddenly… suddenly, Captain Watson dissolves. His shoulders relax, his stance moves from attention, his weight shifting to a casual lean towards his right hip, his expression loses that careful blankness, his head tilts to one side and John’s smile emerges, dazzling, from the mask.

“Of course, Sherlock. Whenever you like and wherever you like. As always.”

And Sherlock takes a sharp breath to steady his nerves. He grins, like a maniac he thinks, but he can’t stop, and he grips John’s good shoulder and squeezes, but God, what’s this? This… hitch in his breath? This impossible lump in his throat? This is not his role. This is not what he does. This is not…

“Come here, you…” and there’s a kind of choked laugh from John, and strong arms draw Sherlock down into a rough embrace, and Sherlock finds he is collapsing into it, fists clenched into John’s coat, face buried in John’s shoulder, and John’s arms are crushing him close, hard enough to hurt.

“God, I missed you, you mad bastard.”

Sherlock means to say ‘You, too” but it comes out as a strange, inarticulate noise. John’s arms press him closer; John’s forehead presses to Sherlock’s temple and his voice in Sherlock’s ear says: “I’m glad you’re not dead, Sherlock. Really, really glad. In case you missed that bit.”

“Me, too. That you. Aren’t dead,” Sherlock manages to articulate.  

They cling together longer than two men who are not lovers would normally be comfortable with, but they aren’t most men. When they part, John’s hands still grip Sherlock’s shoulders. Sherlock drags an arm across his eyes, but he decides that he doesn’t care that John knows he’s crying.  When he blinks to clear his vision, he can see that John’s eyes are wet too. It’s all right then. This, he imagined. He forgot to imagine himself with this surfeit of feeling, that’s all. He forgot to account for the heart he’s grown.

“How long until we have to go?” asks John, and Sherlock is grateful for John’s persistent practicality.

“Tonight. Hours yet.”

“All right. We rest until then…”

“No, John…”

“Yes, Sherlock. You’re exhausted. I can’t imagine you’ve eaten recently, you never do when you’re on a case. You’ll have something light to eat – shut up, Sherlock - you can digest while you sleep. If you go and get yourself killed tonight because you’re exhausted and weak from hunger I will never, ever forgive you, you hear me? So we rest now, and we get this bastard tonight, and we try not to get ourselves shot, stabbed or otherwise murdered in the process. Yes?”

 _If Moran touches you, after all this, I will flay him alive_. “Yes.”

Captain Watson makes a brief reappearance until Sherlock has eaten a few mouthfuls and lain down on John’s bed to sleep. John drags an armchair over, and reclines in it, feet propped up on the end of the bed.

“Sleep!” he commands, “I’ve got the alarm set. Not that we’ll need it. You’ll wake in time.”

“You don’t’ look comfortable,” Sherlock says.

“I’ve slept in much worse conditions,” says John, “But this is where I stay. If I wake up, I want to know you weren’t a dream.” His smile is a little crooked, but real, more real than anything Sherlock has seen or known in a long time.

Sherlock blinks and accepts this reasoning, because God knows, he wants to know, when he wakes, that John isn’t a dream either.

Sherlock closes his eyes. For these four hours, he sleeps.  
  
At last. At last. At last. The precipice is gone and he’s on solid ground again.  After two years, he has finally stopped falling.

 


End file.
